After 4 years of pushing myself to finish this cause my autistic brain can't deal with lefting a game unfinished I'm officialy giving up. This isn't that bad, I still put 60ish hours into it which I wouldn't do if it was insufferable but man the transition with trio of town was BRUTAL.

Main reason I love HM/Sos games is for their overall vibe : running around in cozy lil your town with your cozy ost meeting your quirky villagers while stressing out with the clock is best feeling <3
Idk if this is because of the town amenagement mechanic (which didn't add anything for me) but this one lacks of charm. The graphics are real bad and the art direction is so cheap I feel like I'm playing the sims 1 but worst. Ost is still solid and villagers are still quirky though.
Also, what the hell was the garden tour (???), I feel like most of the new features just sucks.
But what made me mad and reason I dropped this, is the game stupidly blocking you (oh you have to ship 30 yams but it won't unlock until Fall year 2 so good luck spending 3 seasons with little to no objectives !) I still don't know what they were thinking.
(Okay I also gave up because I was mad that I was already dating Allen when Soseki aka the hottest bachelor of the game decided to show up but that's for another story...)

Expect for those complains it's your usual HM drugs, you'll be busy running around all day but still be unable to finish your never ending tasks.
But there's one of the biggest highlight of the franchise in this game imo : dancing in the festival while the intro theme of the original HM DS play made me cry and feel so alive. For that moment alone I knew the game was worth it :')

i loved a lot of the characters and the town, and i think the intent behind the story and how it was meant to progress was well-done. it has that charm that all the 3ds-era bokumono games have. and i married neil, the funniest bachelor in this game.
yet, i feel like so much of my gameplay was spent waiting very long periods of time (sometimes full seasons!!) for things to occur so i could unlock new content and missions to progress the game's story. i would never replay this one and its definitely not my favorite in the series, but i'm glad i got to experience it despite its glaring flaws in pacing and gameplay.

All farming sims are grindy to some degree, not only in the farming itself, but also in foraging for resources whenever you inevitably want to upgrade your house and the like. Some games, like Rune Factory 4, handle this well. Others, like this game, don't.

I think the main problem is that unlike other Harvest Moon games, where the grinding comes in a bit later, this one has you do it from the very start. I played this game for something like 12-15 hours and it felt like I spent 80% of that runtime grinding. It was kind of relaxing at first, but eventually I wanted to actually play the game. Supposedly it does open up after you grind enough to further expand the town, but I never expanded it enough to get to that point.

A lot of expectations fell upon Harvest Moon: A New Beginning as it was the first 3DS-only Harvest Moon. It also wound up the last real Harvest Moon, as its sequel became Story of Seasons in the West and the Harvest Moon name became associated with whatever shovelware Natsume is putting out these days.

Which is ironic, because this iteration took bold new steps for the franchise, putting you in charge of rebuilding not only the a farm, but also the town surrounding it. The setup for the game is the usual: you're a newcomer moving into Echo Village to become a farmer. However, as you get there, you're met with townsfolk departing in search of better opportunities.

As it turns out, the town has become deserted over the years, making it impossible to run a business in it. Your objective is to attract new people to town by constructing new buildings, generating revenue through the farm, winning festivals, among other things, turning the deserted village into a bustling town once again.

This involves assembling blueprints and materials for everything in your farm and the town, and physically placing down each item built. You can fully customize everything: your town has the layout you want it to have, while the farm can be assembled for maximum efficiency or aesthetics -- however you like it. There are multiple types of fields to use, as well as many facilities to build.

The degree of customization the game offers does mean that the town starts out nearly empty, though. If it seems weird to start a Harvest Moon game like that, it's actually not. In my experience, the start for these games is the hardest part, as you have to get to know the entire map and population. A New Beginning lets you slowly get used to the mechanics and your tasks as the town is rebuilt.

It builds a real sense of progress, and also makes it feel like each villager you bring in was someone you wanted to be there, since you have to work for them to move in. That, and the game takes the time to introduce them individually, and let you learn about and befriend each batch before the next one arrives.

Besides, depending on what kind of player you are, it's possible you begin each season by creating long and elaborate task lists for each season, often consulting guides to do so. Having stuff made gradually available, and with clear goals, gives you a bit more room for error, as well as time for unrelated things you might want to do.

Unfortunately, as much as I like the progression, I have to admit its balance is one of the game's greatest shortcomings. The game doesn't want you to go too fast, see, and sometimes it puts arbitrary barriers in your way to slow you down. These barriers are usually items obtained by means of luck (like ores) or, in the worst case, that are only available after certain dates (seeds).

To illustrate how harshly this slows down the game: your main goal is to complete the five Town Restoration Plans. I completed Town Restoration Plan #1 by the end of Spring, #2 during the first week of Summer, #3 in Fall 8th, then #4 in Year 2, Fall 7th. An entire one year wait, simply because one single task in TRP#4 requires a vegetable whose seeds are only available in Y2 Fall.

And during all that time, TRP#5 characters, including the best bachelors in the game, Amir and Sanjay, are locked away from you. Best? Scratch that. The only good bachelors in the game. Neil, Allen and Soseki take pleasure in belittling you, while Rod looks like a child. Amir and Sanjay are the only pleasant ones, but marrying either of them means you won't have a child until Y4, by when it's possible to already have completed the game.

Naturally, ANB doesn't let you marry people of the same sex as you: the Best Friend system is nowhere in sight in this entry, and as of 2022, the series only recently started including these marriages post-launch. It's a shame, more options might have alleviated the marriage issue, and some of the girls are pretty lovable. I still think they could have written men that are less of berating a-holes, though? Just a thought.

Anyway, enough ranting about husbandos. Criticisms aside, I do believe ANB was a huge step forward for the series, and I was sad, later on, to see some of the innovations it brought didn't make it over to Story of Seasons. It does have a slower pace, and that might drive old-time fans away, but those who stay will find that there's a rewarding experience to be had in rebuilding Echo Village.

God it's been forever since I played this one and I don't remember it, but I remember time and stamina ending up a real issue after you actually managed to unlock things, which took a weirdly long time. Also I kind of hated the garden tour mechanics? And I think one of the bachelors was kind of awful.

It was a good Harvest Moon outside of those things, and I did like all the customization you could do to your farm and the town. It was kind of fun unlocking things, even if the pacing wasn't that great. But I think those above things are the reason I ended up selling the game eventually.